In his latest offering, Mr Markle told the Daily Mail over the weekend that Prince Harry had berated him on the phone while he was in hospital recovering from a heart attack, and that he was told he wasn’t allowed to deliver a father-of-the-bride speech at their wedding.

Thomas Markle has given countless interviews to the media since the royal wedding. Picture: ITVSource:Supplied

Yes, this Markle debacle has officially transitioned from headache to migraine for the royal family — and it’s beginning to do serious damage to its reputation.

One royal aide (who worked on Prince William and Kate Middleton’s 2011 wedding) even told the MailOnline that Meghan’s father had been mishandled right from the start.

“The perception is that he was treated very much as an afterthought. No one went to visit him when the answer would have been to have someone fly out from London and explain to him how things were going to happen,” the insider explained to the publication.

“Even after he started talking to the media it was not too late. When Kate’s uncle Gary found himself in the newspaper spotlight [Gary Goldsmith was the focus of lurid headlines about alleged drug taking] he was brought into the fold, not excluded.

“He was told he would be invited to everything but that if he felt inclined to speak out and give interviews, we asked that he let us know in advance so that we would be prepared. No one seems to have thought of that this time.”

Another source told the outlet that it was too late for Palace staffers to patch things up — and that the responsibility now rested squarely on Meghan’s shoulders.

Meghan is reportedly refusing to speak to her father. Picture: Matrix PicturesSource:Matrix

“It’s too late now for equerries or go-betweens to get to Mr Markle — it’s up to Meghan. She clearly loves him enough to have wanted him at her wedding so she needs to go and spend time with him,” the former palace aide told Daily Mail.

“Clearly there is an issue of trust — will he blab about everything to the next microphone put under his nose? But he didn’t talk to the media for a long time earlier on.”